


hiatus versus redux

by tigerbox



Category: Infinite (Band), T-Ara
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6188941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbox/pseuds/tigerbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hyomin and woohyun meet again three years after breaking up. hyomin hustles woohyun for a week because he's just so easy. and pretty cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hiatus versus redux

In all honesty, Hyomin doesn't know how she ends up there. She's reading a poetry book at a bookstore and the next second, she's on the familiar pathway. It's been three years since she's been there last and yet, she knows the roads like the back of her hands, instinctively stepping over the cobblestone she knows is loose and avoiding taking the back route down the alley that constantly smells like week old fish corpse. She doesn't even remember knocking on the door but somehow her right hand has taken it upon itself to curl itself into a fist and knock upon its own merit, and then the door opens. Her reverie is probably too strong mixed with nostalgia but she can't register that it's him in front of her.  
  
He's taller, more stern looking, the bridge of his nose raised high in the air down at her, questioning her presence. And his hair is a bleached bottle shade of blonde that washes away the juxtaposition of his strong features that she once knew all too well.  
  
"I hate the blonde." she says without thinking. She waits for him to shut the door on her. Instead he opens it slightly ajar, forcing her to walk under his arm if she dares to enter. Her twine bracelet gets caught against his grey shirt when she walks past due to the limited space, a bit of its worn threadbare material sticking itself under the clasp. She swears she can see a minuscule prick of his skin from where the collision leaves a hole.  
  
"Sit," he gestures towards his sofa. It's a grown up sofa, very grey and matching of his shirt's color. She looks around, slowly, tapping her bare feet on his clean, newly polished floor. There is a distinctive grey theme surrounding the interior decor. Grey curtains, grey coffee table, grey rug, grey photoframes of Woohyun with his family, his members.  
  
"This is new," she appreciates, finger skimming the edge of the sofa armrest, her long nail tugging at the woven fabric leaving soft little edges on its design. A moment to remember her by. _'I was here.'_  
  
"My family helped me pick it out. I got paid a lot after my solo album. Put most of it in investments, but." Woohyun stays safe on the other side of the coffee table, calm, collected, still eyeing her squarely. She's waken him she realizes, taking in the disheveled level of his hair, the way his sweats sit on his hips purposely bound, the calculated way he refuses to rub his eyes as if he's measuring how much of a mirage she is. She waits and waits for him to be enraged, yell, open the front door and shove her out. He doesn't need this drama, all her trouble. But he doesn't do it.  
  
"Would you like some coffee?"  
  
"Tea, please." Hyomin's not much of a tea drinker but she'd do anything to stall the time. There's nothing she needs to say, she has no purpose being there but something in her core strikes her from walking away. His face is too good - she just wants to stare at it some more. That's all.  
  
  
  
She follows him into the kitchen. This all looks more familiar, more Woohyun. The same chipped mugs, the unused slow cooker box collecting dust in the corner by the sink. His never worn Mickey Mouse apron hangs on the oven rack, the large ears looking like a lopsided smile overlooking them. Woohyun silently grabs a pot and begins to boil the water.  
  
"I'm not much of a tea drinker. Sorry in advance," Woohyun says, back turned to her as he hovers over the stove. The water takes forever to boil, little rivets of water forming bubbles and then just as quickly evaporating so that the surface stays stagnant for longer than five minutes. He sighs, collectively frustrated but he focuses his attention elsewhere, on the packets of tea, reading the instructions on the back over and over again. He's got to make this precise. And only once.  
  
"You look lean. Fit I guess." Hyomin tries to say it friendly, like a compliment but it drips with a seducing quality. He turns his head around feebly, unable to not take notice of how she leans against the other counter, legs crossed, elbows back, inquisitive.  
  
"I've been eating a lot of chicken breast. Tour coming up." he turns his head back around, begs the water to start boiling. Hyomin knows it's not an invitation but she takes it as such, walking forward, coming up right behind him so that the front of her thighs graze at the back of his knees, her chest innocently resting on his back. It's a back hug without the arms, and she can feel his breaths contracting, uncomfortable at the contact of skin. Bravely, she takes a hand and wraps it around his waist, flat palm snaking its way across his stomach, able to feel every muscle in his abdomen tense up beneath the layer of his grey shirt.  
  
"Don't." he hisses, almost screams, taking a tight hold of her wrist and shoving it to the side, away and off of him. It takes another ten minutes for the water to start bubbling.  
  
  
  
He looks less surprised when she turns up the next day at his doorstep, picnic basket in tow, red and white gingham checkered pattern napkins overflowing.  
  
"You shouldn't be here."  
  
"It's an apology offering."  
  
"I'm late for rehearsal."  
  
"So am I."  
  
This time they sit on the floor by the television. Woohyun's got a spectacular foreign movie on high volume playing on his grandiose television and his eyes widen anytime someone on screen kills someone else. Hyomin remains bemused, sitting cross-legged, silently cutting the muffins with a bread knife, generously slabbing each piece with butter, so much so that some drips onto his grey rug, blending in. She cheaply tries to wipe it with a napkin, then offers Woohyun a plate. It piques his interest, and he turns his attention away from the movie, eyeing the bread hungrily.  
  
"I told you I'm on a diet. Remember?" he mopes, some form of his old self with many emotions seeping through. Hyomin remembers how adorable she found it whenever he'd been wistful.  
  
"Just one little bite won't hurt you. See, I'll go first." She takes the biggest muffin piece from her own plate and shoves it whole into her mouth, crumbs gathering down her shirt and onto the floor. "See?" she tries to say, voice drowned out by chewing. Woohyun shows a minor semblance of laughter, taking a hand to his mouth to cover it.  
  
"I can't. Three month long tour." he reaffirms sadly. Three people start shooting and kill each other on screen, but Woohyun isn't looking anymore, concentration totally fixed on Hyomin now.  
  
"I baked it myself," Hyomin resigns sadly. They make eye contact then, like it is the first time. Slow, drawn out, meaningful without context. It's a bad thing but Woohyun fails to break it, even when Hyomin advances, hovering over him like a tiger, a lonely piece of banana nut bread in hand, dangerously close to his lips.  
  
"Just one bite," he manages to say meekly, ignoring just how close she is over him now, knees on the floor, body bent over his ready to pounce. She nods courteously, bringing the muffin to his mouth and he opens wide, taking in a little at first, and soon the whole thing, crumbs and butter and all.  
  
"Shit," he moans, because it tastes so good, the carbs and complexities of bread swiveling around his tastebuds. He swirls his tongue around in his mouth, disappointed when there is none left. Some diet. Hyomin brings her pinky forward, scooping up the drops of butter missed on the side of Woohyun's mouth, savoring it up by licking her own finger. Woohyun feels his jaw unhinge itself a little, eyeing the picnic basket behind Hyomin's firm ass and he can't help but let a little grin escape. "I guess one more wouldn't hurt right?"  
  
  
  
There is no picnic basket the third day. Just three knocks, three rings of the doorbell. Hyomin paces, then tries calling his number. Disconnected. The one from three years ago; they never exchanged their new ones. _'Rehearsal,'_ his voice somewhere in the air reminds. Still, Hyomin remains at his doorstep for another hour hoping he's just been in the shower or something. He never comes home. She scrawls a messy note and shoves it under his keypad. _'Hyomin was here. Forever.'_  
  
  
  
It's twilight the next time she tries.  
  
Only her, her shapened body revealed by the confines of her slinky back dress.  
  
"You can't be here." he mutters when he gets home late from a schedule. He crosses his arms, stiffly, making his way to the keypad, door remaining shut behind him. It's night time now, and the city lights twinkle behind her, down the large hill and onto the rolling hills of the residents living below. Her eyes remain forlorn, betraying him like a kicked puppy.  
  
"I just wanted to talk." Darkness looms all around them. Woohyun can see the mounds of her breasts beneath her very low-cut dress, her slim navel peeking through the thin black fabric. She definitely wasn't here to just talk.  
  
"My neighbors will be the ones talking if they keep seeing you."  
  
He skirts a stressed hand through his blonde hair, flinching when she reaches up to do the same, strands of the blonde illuminated between her fingers, letting them loose and falling back into his eyes.  
  
"We can't just leave things unresolved like this."  
  
"They were resolved. Three years ago."  
  
"Five minutes please?"  
  
Woohyun takes a deep breath. Everything he inhales smells like Hyomin's perfume: jasmines, sugar, heaven, fairytale shit. His eyes stay shut as he opens his door.  
  
  
  
Talking in his bedroom is a cheap idea. He keeps posted by his dresser but Hyomin has no hesitation about finding herself on his bed, crossing her legs and looking up at him with that knowing gait. The bed is enormous and it almost swallows her whole, with all the greying and lackluster of color making the scene look almost monochrome. She pats the bed besides her, _come, sit_. Woohyun shakes his head, _no_ , in solid refusal.  
  
"Talk." he reminds, arms still crossed, purple veins sticking out of his forearms in treacherous form.  
  
"You're nervous," her eyebrows stitch up, out of pity.  
  
"Hyomin. Whatever it is you want to say just say it. We've been down this road before."  
  
"I just missed you. Miss you. I just wanted to see you again. that's all."  
  
"You just want a fuckbuddy."  
  
"I just wanted a friend."  
  
"Friends? We were never friends."  
  
The truth and then some. Hyomin lowers her head, hurt. He can't see her eyes this way, her chin tuckered into her neck. Feeling guilty, he takes a seat besides her, politely patting her back in some form of empathy. He doesn't know how to react when she rejects his comfort, inching a couple of spaces away on the edge of the bedframe away from him.  
  
"You were the one who broke up with me. I'm not okay with being your midnight rendezvous, your rebound, this sordid love affair or whatever. It's just not fair to me." he attempts to be strict but his voice cracks when he speaks up.  
  
"You could never be a rebound." she looks up, and her tears melt every strong part of his body. He's a terrible person. "I did miss you."  
  
"Hey," he starts, against his better will, taking an arm and easily scooping her up until she's right next to him body next to body. Jasmine, sugar, adrenaline. The whole package. "Me too. But we can't go back down this road."  
  
"I was at the bookstore the other day," she takes a hand and wipes the snot away from her nose, shamefully. Woohyun offers her the backside of his tie, dabbing her cheeks with it until the plaid lines are soaked through, "I read this poem and it just took me back. To all those things I did. All those things I said. Regret, you know?"  
  
"Yeah," Woohyun nods, knowing. She stops crying, almost laughing. Her eyes glisten from the fresh tears in linear form to the city lights outside the window.  
  
"Moments to you, things that fall apart, redeem the things you've broken," she begins to recite. Woohyun places a warm hand on her thigh, savoring the softness of her skin. Just like old times. "I guess I thought if I could get you to forgive me I could forgive myself. Put you in a lousy position trying to do that though. I'm sorry," she whispers, making it so as if she's going to finally get up and leave.  
  
"How did the rest of the poem go?" he pulls at her legs, not letting her get up in a surprise to both himself and her. "Recite it to me," he begs, eager almost.  
  
"Uh, I don't remember the rest," Hyomin tries to think of the other lines quickly as Woohyun's hand advances back on her thigh. "World away, your mistakes are yours to be told, remember your fears, the rest will itself be bold."  
  
"Okay," Woohyun suddenly confirms. "We can be friends again. If that's what you want."  
  
"Really? So you forgive me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I never thought of you as just a fuckbuddy, you know that right?"  
  
"Yeah." Woohyun smiles, unable to move his hand away from Hyomin's thigh.  
  
The poem's lyrics take him into something of a bit of intoxication. She's looking real good, with that vulnerable stare, dry tears streamlining the line of her jaw, her breasts moving in rhythmic peace as she breathes, her heavy eyeliner and curled lashes unfurling him deep.  
  
"Woohyun," she tries softly.  
  
"Hmm," he mumbles already losing the battle.  
  
"Friends don't stare at each other's tits like that."  
  
  
  
Somehow it's not really a shock that Woohyun opens the door the next time with hair a healthy hue of chestnut again. He opens the door on the first knock, wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants. They hang so absurdly low Hyomin has a hard time looking anywhere else, missing the fact that his hair has fixed itself.  
  
"Up here," Woohyun chuckles, taking his index finger and tucking it under her chin so that she can focus.  
  
"I'd gotten attach to the blonde," she mourns, stepping inside, away from his sweatpants.  
  
"Yeah, sure you did," he mocks, slamming the door behind them. "So, bedroom?"  
  
Hyomin's eye twitches from the suggestion but also because Woohyun's sweatpants are still teasing her with glee. He raises an eyebrow back when she jumps out of his wiggling fingers with too much ease.  
  
"I was hoping we'd go outside today and play for a bit. You know, the way real friends do?"  
  
  
  
They hit the local basketball court by the river by Hyomin's suggestion. They both don the usual celebrity undercover gear, black cap, dark sunglasses, oversized hoodies but by the end of round two they are both so chock full of sweat their layers of disguise end up on the pavement.  
  
"I'm surprised you know," Woohyun tries to casually mention as Hyomin loops around him closer to the net with offensive dribbling, "I thought for sure you'd want to go to like a coffee shop or the movies or something."  
  
"No way. Those are both synonymous with dating," she slicks back her ponytail dripping with sweat just as she tucks herself behind Woohyun's grasp and somehow makes a shot to both of their surprise, "And we're not dating. right?"  
  
"Right." Woohyun steals the ball from Hyomin and dribbles it himself, more confused than ever. He takes an impressive aim for a three pointer halfway down the court. And fails. Hyomin doesn't react much, tending to a broken nail. It's like reverse psychology, and somehow over the course of a mere week, she's taken the upper hand. Woohyun feels his stomach churn and get all queasy. He rumbles a hand through his freshly colored hair before running to retrieve the ball and then shucks it in the general direction of Hyomin's butt.  
  
"Oops."  
  
"Ow!"  
  
"Shit," he feigns sympathy, skipping precisely over to her to gage her reaction. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. You down for a rematch or will we have to call it quits?"  
  
Hyomin frowns at him, shoving the basketball in his open hands, massaging her sore ass in his splendid eyesight.  
  
"You win. Congratulations."  
  
"Great," Woohyun feels himself, for the first time in forever, exhilarate with joy. And then he looks down at Hyomin who is still suggestively massaging her bruised bum with a mischievous gleam in her eye. "Wait a minute. Are you conceding a win or letting me win on my own merit?"  
  
Hyomin merely shrugs, running down the court again and scoring with a terrible granny style shot. "Whatever you need to believe Woohyun."  
  
Woohyun can't believe his eyes, much less the fact that he's getting hustled yet again, by Park Hyomin of all people. He crosses his arms with resolute, suddenly thinking that going to the movies would have been a lot less risky.  
  
"I demand a rematch. On my terms!"  
  
  
  
And that's how it begins. No foreplay, no speech about how this is a terrible idea. One night later, and back at his place with cheap wine and jersey tunes from the early 2000's. Woohyun just tucks himself behind Hyomin until his chestnut colored hair is all she can see beyond her neck.  
  
"I thought you wanted to just be friends," she wonders as Woohyun wraps his arms behind Hyomin, bringing her painstakingly close, so close she could feeling him swelling up, hard. He merely laughs, digging his fingers into her side, head buried into her shoulder. She smells Woohyun's sweat glistening off his bare chest, pondering when was the last time he showered.  
  
"Sorry, played basketball this morning. You know, for practice and revenge." He stumbles them into his bedroom, the ellipses of to be continued from the day before. His sweat is invigorating to be sure, but Hyomin hesitates, turning herself around before Woohyun pushes them against the doorframe with a cheeky smile, pulling at the hem of her jeans, slow lazy kisses coming together on the dip of her collarbone.  
  
"So wait just so we're clear, we're friends right?" she asks again, and he murmurs a yes somewhere between her chin and her neck. "And you forgive me."  
  
"Yes." and then he kisses her. He kisses her real good, lips hooked, tip of his tongue slithering in, fingers taking hold of her jaw holding her steady. He pushes her against the door, and she brings a knee up between them, letting it graze his crotch until he buckles over her, weak. She removes her shirt quickly, observing as Woohyun becomes undone at the sight of her breasts in mere reach.  
  
"We make terrible friends," she concludes when Woohyun reaches over and fondles her breasts tightly, her nipples hardening between his knuckles, soon replaced with the puckering of his pressed lips. She knows how this is going to go, feeling her knees shake as his thighs start to strain when her fingers undo his zipper and start to explore.  
  
"Define friends," Woohyun's lips find Hyomin's again, tongue so warm and inviting. He presses a finger between her thighs and slides it in, marveling at how quickly Hyomin caves upon him, her toes curling, ears stinging. She doesn't loosen her grip as his fingers become more ravenous inside her, muttering his name under her breath a few times between chaste kisses, her breathing so hitched he loses himself between counts. She's palming him with her free hand, making him unable to concentrate before he sinks his body into hers, pushing forward and out, forward and out, impatient hips rocking with frantic rhythm. It's a game set and match after she orgasms in his hold and then he does not too long after, at last caught up in soft kisses on the bruising of her bum from the day before.  
  
  
  
Day seven is a follow up of day six, with bed cuddling and naked toes. Hyomin oddly enough, finds herself growing attached to the grey sheets, Woohyun making his way besides her underneath them, possessing her torso with his sleepy arms. He keeps his eyes shut, nudging at her bare stomach with a lithe finger under the sheets just to make sure she's there.  
  
"This position is impossibly uncomfortable to sleep in," she says after a while, bringing a finger to his nose and squeezing it.

"I'm afraid if I open my eyes, you won't really be there." he mutters, throat dry. This is the Woohyun Hyomin mostly remembers. Vulnerable, sweet, full of after morning thoughts and lovesick regrets. She combs a thumb through his hair, finely appreciating its feel.  
  
"I'm still here silly."  
  
"So you say."  
  
"I'm not going anywhere, Woohyun. not this time. Friends forever."  
  
"Friends forever, indeed." Woohyun opens his eyes. Hyomin is there, eyes fluttering, her familiar fingers enveloping his chin into inescapable cuddle. Likewise, she nuzzles herself into his jawline like a cat, anything for a happy distraction. Woohyun shucks his free hand around her, bringing her so close there is no space for either of them to go anywhere. "Just the way I like it," he reaffirms, suffocating her in an endless amount of pliant kisses, enough to make up for a drought of three of years or so.  
  
"Just so you know Woohyun, I threw the game yesterday. I planned this all along."  
  
"I figured as much, hustler."  
  
Day seven is a good day.


End file.
